


You Still Have Me

by Jemppu



Series: Honey Mushroom [32]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Art, Culmets - Freeform, Fanart, M/M, Tumblr, honey mushroom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23837215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jemppu/pseuds/Jemppu
Summary: Part of"Honey Mushroom"series of illustrated Culmets momentslisted here on tumblr.Behind the scenes aftermath of the USS Glenn recovery mission of season 1, episode 3.With an illustration.
Relationships: Hugh Culber/Paul Stamets
Series: Honey Mushroom [32]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1080993
Kudos: 10





	You Still Have Me

**Author's Note:**

> The series gets released quite out of order, as inspiration dictates, so I urge you to check out the [series list on tumblr](https://tinyurl.com/honeyshroom) for a better picture of the whole.

## 

## You Still Have Me  
  


**Hugh had been keeping close watch of the ship’s general notices board** on his PADD the moment he had gotten back to his station from seeing Paul off to the Glenn. He was anxiously waiting for any announcements regarding the mission to pop up.

  
  
This was of course aside his duties - any notice for the medical team themselves would come through to the sickbay directly - but his man was on that mission and Hugh was desperate to hear back from them.  
  
The quiet nightshift was nearing it’s final hour, but Hugh wasn’t sure he wanted to leave, in case there should be a call for the team - he wanted to be present.  
  
Another announcement from the control popped up on the board. Finally! An entry concerning the Glenn mission.  
  
Hugh opened the entry to read and got the all too brief relief immediately swiped off of his mind; the away team was reported to be returning shortly, but had suffered a loss of soul aboard the Glenn. No further info.  
  
Obviously it was still too early for Paul himself to have contacted him of his return - the mission wasn’t through yet. But Hugh still instinctively re-checked his communicator for any possible missed calls. Nothing. Of course not.  
  
Shit. He could feel his unconscious mind starting to wander to the worst possible place.  
  
Meanwhile he was consciously telling himself to “Calm down, Culber”, trying his best to push aside all speculation and remain as professional and objective as possible. Though the current facts seemed bleak.  
  
Surely, he would have ‘felt’ it somehow, if anything had happened to Paul, Hugh assured himself, and could immediately hear the conflict in his mind: “how can you tell yourself to stay objective while relying on such an over-sentimental notion?”.

Fine, he chose to follow his heart on this one - seemed more comforting for now.

“There has been casualty on the recovery mission”, Hugh forced himself out of his thoughts and shared the news to his colleague, handing the PADD with the announcement tab open to them.  
  
Luckily he was on duty tonight with one of his closest buddies on the medic team. Hugh had discussed the situation with them. In fact, this quiet a night, the Glenn had been one of the top most discussed topics between them. And big news on night shifts all over the ship, Hugh imagined.  
  
“Damn”, his Lieutenant mate exclaimed reading the post, “and they’re practically here - how have we not been alerted yet?”  
  
“Means there’s no body to retrieve”, Hugh knew from past experience.  
  
What ever had went on on the mission, it had required for them to leave a soul behind. Which surely couldn’t bode well for the remaining away party either, Hugh had the prior understanding to predict.  
  
Hugh noticed his mind circling back to worrying for the state of his man. Man, who had practically no training for any such situations - a civilian in all but title, when it came to field duty.  
  
“I wouldn’t worry about it”, his buddy’s mind must have anticipated some concern as well, “surely the announcement would specify, if anything had happened to **the** Chief Engineer of Discovery.”  
  
Fair point, Hugh thought. It sometimes slipped his mind, that his Honey Mushroom was actually a rather big deal on the ship. This was a good thought to rely on for now, without need to start further questioning it.  
  
“Thank you”, Hugh appreciated the support.  
  
He was still unsure though, if Paul would immediately be mindful enough to send him a notice of their return.  
  
Hell, even without these unusual circumstances the man had tendencies of his absent mindedness getting in the way of letting his whereabouts be known when needed - or seeing the importance of sharing his schedule.  
  
Hugh needed to go greet the arriving shuttle.  
  
“You mind, if I end the shift early tonight?” he asked, turning to his shift mate.  
  
“Hell no, go be where you’re needed”, his buddy encouraged, “there’s nothing here anymore - I’ll just wrap things up for the morning crew”.  
  
“Thanks, I’ll owe you”

  


**Hugh entered the shuttle bay,** looking around the people flooding towards him, carrying equipment of various kinds. It seemed an oddly numerous crowd for this time of the night, but that was hardly Hugh’s concern right now.  
  
He didn’t see any of the mission crew among the crowd - had they already managed to clear out?  
  
“Paul?” Hugh sounded out, finally spotting a familiar face across the mass. A wave of relief washed over him as all the worst thoughts and unwelcome emotions now vanished from some remote corner of his mind, where he had managed to push them.  
  
He hurried next to Paul, put his hand on the visibly shaken man’s shoulder and guided him aside to sit down on some crates further away from the hangar exit - which seemed like they were deliberately arranged there to serve as a makeshift break area for the hangar crew.  
  
“Mushroom, are you okay?” A redundant question in itself; obviously things weren’t okay.  
  
“He’s dead, Hugh”, Paul muttered, leaning against his knees.  
  
Was he talking about… Straal now?  
  
“I know, Honey. I’m so sorry”, Hugh tried to look his man in the eyes, but Paul was hanging his head so low Hugh couldn’t get any contact. He went down on his knees and straight out sat on the floor against Paul.  
  
“I mean… I knew it going in, but…”, his man mumbled.  
  
“It’s okay, Mushroom.” Hugh tried to calm him down resting his hands on the man’s thighs, “tell me.”  
  
“I saw him”, Paul said in almost an angry tone. He was clearly trying his hardest to keep up his composure. “He’s gone”, he said again, putting his hand against his furrowed brows, trying to avoid all eye contact.  
  
Typical Paul, Hugh thought. The man was unnecessarily stubbornly trying to act brave. Trying to fight back the emotions by pretending like they didn’t matter, or even exist.  
  
Hugh wanted to desperately wrap his arms around Paul, and hold the man tightly, but knew he’d likely get pushed away - that for Paul this wasn’t the place for it, and such intimacy here with crew present would just make him feel further uncomfortable.  
  
“Honey…” Hugh said gently, trying to get his man’s attention as Paul’s eyes kept shifting confused from side to side. The emotions were finally catching up with the man.  
  
It had been understandable before the mission to try and push them aside - crucial even -, but he should let go now. Now would be the time to allow the feelings to come through.  
  
“What the hell am I going to do now?” Paul said quietly to himself. It sounded like the man was locking himself up even further.  
  
“I’m right here”, Hugh leaned closer and rubbed Paul’s thighs reassuringly, trying to calm down the shaken man.  
  
Alerted by the touch, Paul seemed to became aware of his surroundings again just then, and turned his head to side to take a quick scan around to see if anyone was looking.  
  
“Honey” Hugh repeated firmly, taking Paul’s hand into his own, managing to get the man’s attention somewhat. Though Paul’s eyes refused to look at him still.  
  
He could see tears forming into the corners of the man’s panicked eyes. “Mushroom, you are not alone” he reassured, “you still have me. You’ll always have me.”  
  
Paul kept staring into nothing, his furrowing brows painting such a pained look on his face.  
  
Hugh ran his hand across the chest of the tactical vest on Paul and reached to pull the zipper down a bit to ease the man’s collar, “we need to get you to rest”, he said still holding to Paul’s hand firmly in his other hand. This place was clearly holding his man back from easing up.  
  
Paul’s lost gaze then suddenly turned to a more resolute one and he composed his posture a bit.  
  
“No”, he said still staring into thin air, “I need to go…”  
  
Hugh looked at Paul confused and was just about to open his mouth, when the man finally turned to look him straight in the eyes.  
  
“I’m sorry, Hugh”, Paul said nodding his head decisively, “I need to go make sure that data gets filed properly”.  
  
“What? …Paul…”, Hugh said in a desperately disappointed voice, “it’s the end of the night shifts soon”. He was trying to keep Paul sitting by holding on to his legs, but got pushed aside as the man refused to stay down.  
  
“Surely it can wait till morning”, Hugh uttered in a strong yet gentle tone, letting the worry sound through clearly. He really couldn’t push himself to argue with the distressed man, so this was his only option left - final desperate effort to try and guilt the man to stay put.  
  
Paul looked down to the man at his feet. “I’m sorry”, he said in an eerily detached voice, “it needs to be now. I need to get the work started at least”. He then turned away and quickly disappeared into the passing by crowd, leaving Hugh sitting there on the hangar floor.  
  
“Shit”, was all Hugh could manage.  
It was clear the man was running away from his emotions to his tasks. He had seen him do this before.  
  
Hugh leaned his head in desperation against the hand resting on his knee.  
  
And when had Paul ever heeded to such emotional acts, Hugh reviled his ‘tactics’. He should’ve reminded him of something more pragmatic like “you’ll function better after a sleep”, but he also knew Paul had the sense to see through such “condescending bullshit” - as the man would put it: and he’d be right on that - right now Hugh couldn’t care less, if his man didn’t work for a week, if it’d be a way to get him to calm down and rest.  
  
But he didn’t want to push the man either - he felt he still needed to respect Paul’s own way of coming in terms with this, and wanted to give him the space he required.  
  
Hugh collected his thoughts and rose up from his seated position, dusting off his uniform pants as well as could be done - the medic whites tended to be relentlessly harsh for any spots and were left with faint grey streaks now too.  
  
He glanced over the scene in the hangar, observing the few people still busy seemingly unpacking and beaming off last of the recovered stuff from the Glenn. Or what ever this commotion was.  
  
The mission crew itself had clearly already vanished to who knew where - probably to rest as any sensible officer would.  
  
All except Landry, who - Hugh just now saw - still hovered around, busily talking on their communicator.  
  
It was hard to tell from behind the stern face, but they too seemed little out of sorts. Hugh still didn’t know for sure, who had been lost, but could pretty safely guess now, and it didn’t seem necessary to arouse the Security Commander’s attention to ask.  
  
They did however notice Hugh and gave the medical officer a slight, casual salute, whilst continuing on with the communicator conversation. Hugh returned the gesture in kind.  
  
Hugh found himself wondering, what exactly was the policy in effect aboard the Discovery, regarding psychological support for crews returning from away missions. He doubted a man, who had seen it okay to send someone untrained for field duty to witness their best friend’s death site, spared much thought to such a thing.  
  
There had been no alerts to the medbay crew what-so-ever and he hadn’t seen a glimpse of any other medic whites on the welcoming party here either. Were there possibly others too, who’d need moral support after such an ordeal - how would they fare?  
  
Had he not been himself observing the general announcements, he wouldn’t have known anything of the mission’s return either - and doubted even Paul in his current state would’ve indeed remembered to let him know. Or wanted to - not straight away - Hugh had to admit to himself.  
  
Hugh felt irritably desperate for this uncertainty. He would surely look into this still.  
  
Right now he also suspected there wasn’t anyone there in that engineering department, who’d even notice the difference in Paul’s usual demeanor - know, that he was hiding his shock and sorrow by burying himself into his work. They would flood into their morning shift, blissfully unaware of their department head’s nightly ordeal and possibly ‘pester’ him just as usual - again, these were Paul’s words that Hugh found were now adding certain familiar spice to his thoughts.  
  
And maybe that’s what Paul needed right now, distrations, but knowing how he was, on a long run his man could be in danger of exhausting himself, Hugh worried.  
  
But he also knew, that any professional opinion or personal plea to get the man off of his duties and to rest would certainly fall flat on both Paul himself and on the current commanding faction. Hugh, as a doctor and as a caring partner, felt utterly helpless on this matter.  
  
Hugh let out a sigh and shifted his concentration back to the moment. By a closer look now, the crew here appeared to be rather preparing the shuttle for another take off.  
  
As he had also taken notice of the lack of bodies being brought back from the Glenn, he now wondered, if this preparation was to retrieve some of the bodies, maybe?  
  
Hugh picked up the PADD he had let drop on the floor earlier, to quickly glance at the announcement board. No, there didn’t seem to be mentions of any sort about another shuttle mission. And the medbay had still not been alerted.  
  
Were they going to leave all of the lost crew drift in space then? How would Paul feel about this - about his oldest friend being left behind? He’d likely say such a thing was but useless sentimentality, but Hugh felt in this case, his man could still come to question it eventually. Even if he’d never admit it out loud.  
  
The shuttle took off, and soon the hangar lights blinked off with the last of the ‘pit crew’.  
  
Hugh stood there in the dimly lit hall for a while, staring into the open space outside the bay door while listening through the silence to the now increasingly audible hum of the ship.  
  
Even the usually comforting, familiar hum couldn’t provide him solace right now, when the ‘engineer’ whose presence it reminded him of was so out of sorts.  
  
Hugh then turned and stepped out to the corridors. Even their nighttime lighting seemed bright in comparison.  
  
He really didn’t feel like returning to their quarters alone; he knew he couldn’t get rest anyway, before having Paul back there as well.  
  
He decided to return to the medbay to finish his shift after all - greet the early morning shift and brief them on the Glenn incident personally.  
  
He huffed to himself - he was doing exactly the same what he had just scolded Paul for in his mind: putting aside anxious rest by escaping to his duties.  
  
This wasn’t exactly what he had signed up for, when he had requested assignment aboard Discovery to be by his man’s side. Or was it? In fact, wasn’t this exactly what he had to have known to expect.

**Hugh had gone back to the sickbay** and stuck around for a while, discussing the Glenn incident with the team coming in for the early morning shift. But had eventually agreed to his colleagues’ assessments to just call it a night.

He would head back to their home aboard and send Paul a message to ask how he was doing - try to convince the man to put aside his work for a while somehow.  
  
As he stepped into their quarters he was surprised to see Paul there already, sitting by the dining table at his usual spot overlooking the room, fiddling with his PADD - which also seemed usual. But of course this wasn’t. For one - and most obvious outwards: the man was still in his mission jumpsuit.  
  
“Oh, you’re home already?” Hugh paused on the doorway, “do you want me to maybe come back later?”  
  
Sometimes having just the one room for the both of them presented challenges.  
  
“Oh. Dear, no”, Paul assured, visibly apologetic, attempting to smile through the furrowed brows - though failing.  
  
Good, Hugh thought. He didn’t really want to leave the man alone right now. He removed his uniform jacket and flung it aside on a chair as he walked across the room to the dining corner.  
  
As he sat down at the end of the table, next to Paul, he tried to see any signs of shed tears, but none appeared to be there - Hugh wasn’t sure this was necessarily a good thing.  
  
“I’m so sorry I ran off like that”, Paul said, closing the PADD, “I really needed…”, he paused seemingly hesitant.  
  
“The space?” Hugh attempted to finish the man’s thought.  
  
Paul let out a little, uneased huff, “to make sure they stored the recovered stuff properly at the engineering”.  
  
Really, Paul? This again? Hugh thought to himself of the man’s inability to open up. He looked at Paul and let the man see his reproach - to show that there was no need to hide.  
  
“But, yeah… you’re right”, Paul, seeing this, eased some of his defensiveness, “the space too, I suppose”.  
  
“But I’m glad you’re here now”, he added assuredly, but with the sorry showing through his eyes still.  
  
“Honey, I’m here when ever you need me to be. You don’t need to act tough for me or to feel sorry for needing your space”, Hugh assured, “I know this living arrangement can sometimes be a bit difficult, but you mustn’t feel like you need to hide.”  
  
“Wouldn’t have it any other way though”, Paul flashed a genuine smile through the weariness in his eyes.  
  
“That is still good to hear”, Hugh smiled back, relieved to see some of that familiar certitude in his man’s eyes again, “but honestly, Paul, you must not feel like you can’t talk to me. Or if you need the space, just say so. Like you always do so confidently anyway. Don’t shut me out.”

Paul nodded slightly, turning his gaze downwards.

Hugh then leaned in a bit to look Paul in the eyes and flashed such a warm smile, it made the man look back at him a bit confused. “Is it okay to kiss you now?” Hugh asked, recalling back to what Paul had promised there in the gear room right before the mission’s takeoff.

The confusion lifted off the man’s face and got replaced by a hint of a charming smile, as Paul accepted the offer with a small delighted hum. Hugh leaned further to give the man a kiss - just enough to remind him, that he was not alone on this, and was dearly loved. “I’m so glad to have you back here safely”, Hugh assured, rubbing the man’s still tense shoulders.  
  
Hugh then got up from the chair and reached his arms up to stretch his back. “I’m taking a quick shower before bed”, he announced, “you’re welcome to join”.  
  
“Fuuuck, yes”, Paul moaned out a long, relaxed sigh, letting the tensed up shoulders finally drop in a sign of full relief. Hugh couldn’t help but to smile at the sudden perkiness in his Honey Mushroom’s mood. The man seemed most welcome to the idea of getting out of the dreadful mission gear and wash away the night’s horrors.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts on the work posted along with the illustration on [**tumblr**](https://jmalkki.tumblr.com/post/173386088889/you-still-have-me-second-one-in-the-series-of).
> 
> _Likes, shares, comments and what have you, all appreciated on:_  
>  _[ **tumblr**](http://jmalkki.tumblr.com/) | [**twitter**](https://twitter.com/Jemppu) | [**instagram**](https://www.instagram.com/jeminamalkki/) | [**DeviantArt**](https://www.deviantart.com/jemppu)_


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